Out Where the Buses Don’t Run

So the fellow who was signing for the deaf during Nelson Mandela’s memorial service got into some trouble by supposedly signing gibberish. Later news blurbs have the poor guy admitting that he’s a diagnosed schizophrenic and had freaked out when he saw angels entering the stadium. I guess that’s when his signing went sideways and the media put him under the global microscope: “Nutbar Fools Security and Gets Too Close to World Leaders at Mandela’s Funeral.”

How did he get that close to those world leaders when security was tighter than my jeans fresh from the dryer?

Part of me sympathizes with him – not because of his alleged personality disorder, but because on hearing his side of what happened, my first thought was, What if angels were in the stadium? Seriously. It seems to me that if angels were to show up anywhere, Mandela’s memorial service would be an appropriate occasion. He was a great man. He was a good man, a kind man, an ultimately peaceful and patient man. He was the sort of soul whom the angels would want to ensure gets back to where he belongs, to that better place we’re told of but fear we won’t ever see.

Do I believe in angels? I don’t disbelieve in them. I believe in oxygen, after all, and I can’t see that, either. If angels do exist, it makes sense that some people can see them. Many people see ghosts. Many people are tapped into the great beyond in ways the majority can’t imagine (and that might be why the majority don’t see the same things – they have ceased to imagine anything except the worst). Seers and mystics are not new to society. Now, as throughout history, they’re simply counted among those with mental problems. Writing them off as lunatics makes the rest of us feel better, but maybe, just maybe, this man at Mandela’s service actually saw angels and slipped into “signing gibberish” from fear. Not fear of the angels themselves, but of a relapse in his diagnosed condition, and the inevitable criticism of everyone who’s plugged into the global network. He could be a deeply spiritual individual with a gift for seeing things unseen. Truly, a gift for seeing angels, ghosts, whatever, a gift like that could drive you mad because so few others understand or share it.

Where am I going with this? “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” Maybe the crazy ones aren’t crazy at all.